We’re all taught that zero is a number. But I’ve realized that treating “nothingness” as a mathematical object actually breaks our understanding of reality. When you realize that 0 + 0 = 0 is a physical fiction (you can’t add two absences together), it completely changes how you view logic, existence, and the boundaries of human comprehension. I wrote a breakdown of how our logic systems are flawed and how fixing them actually points us toward a deeper truth about the cause of everything.
Before you read, a quick clarification so my premise isn’t misunderstood: I am not arguing that we should remove zero from mathematics. Zero is absolutely essential as a positional placeholder (like in the number 105) and as a symbol to mark an empty boundary. I’m also not arguing that we should immediately switch out the current version of math with my version of math, but it should be taught alongside it.
My argument is that the moment we treat zero as an active, operational integer, something you can perform an action on, like addition or multiplication, we create a logical illusion that detaches math from physical reality. This doesn’t mean math can’t still operate as an abstract system when needed. It simply means that by redefining zero, we ensure that when math does need to connect back to the physical world (like in word problems), it actually makes sense instead of creating contradictions as will be explained in my posts. However, I do wish to point out that skim-reading will cause you to misunderstand my points, so while it might feel like I’m some random nobody who doesn’t have any clue what they’re talking about, if you’re going to debate me, please first do your research, because many have tried to counter my points, but just ended up using arguments I already completely addressed in my posts.
I’ve thought about this, and I can’t quite see the problem with it. The real question is how and if it would break all the theory that has already been done with 0 math.
The difference is between a thing, that is greater or lesser than other things, and no thing.
I think he’s correct about the distinction.
In practice, “infinity” results are treated as nonsense in mathematical operations, not actual infinity, because the difference between no thing and thing is not infinity. It is, in fact, a nonsense comparison.
You could, of course, not write two numbers that are infinity from each other.
Apart from destroying algebra if you were right, negative numbers are treated differently than zero. they don’t have to meet the same ontological criteria:
For zero: Math must represent literal physical matter in space. Abstract boundaries don’t count as real numbers.
For negative numbers: Math suddenly doesn’t need physical matter — it can represent a promise, a contract, or a “state of owing.”
There isn’t an ontological contradiction, because zero and negative numbers interact with physical reality in fundamentally different ways. This is exactly why I brought up the physical impossibility of combining boundaries in ‘How multiplication and division work with the Void rule’ in the ‘problem 5’ section you clearly skimread through… even though I literally said in my post not to do that.
The Void Rule doesn’t just say ‘math must be a literal physical object right now.’ It says math must represent an action involving physical baseline matter.
Zero is an empty boundary.
As I pointed out, you cannot logically take two empty boundaries (like two empty desks) and physically ‘add’ their emptiness together to create a new, larger emptiness. There is zero baseline matter inside the boundary to act upon. The equation aborts because you are trying to perform an active physical command on a Void.
Negative numbers are displaced actions.
A debt or a promise is not a Void. It is an action (a transfer) that strictly tracks real, physical matter over time. If I owe you 5 apples, the apples physically exist (or will exist), you and I physically exist, and the ledger exists. Because there is real baseline matter involved, I can logically combine debts (-5 + -5 = -10)… as I literally already explained in this post: “Foundations of Reality-Grounded Mathematics” in the “Chapter 3: Negative Numbers and the Container Model” section. So please, actually read my posts, because if I catch you skimreading again, I will assume that you don’t actually care to engage me, that you just want to state your point of view, and not care about mine. In other words, I will simply ignore you.
You’re using a double standard for where physical objects are located. If you claim a debt works because it points to specific apples in an orchard while zero has no physical counterpart, that ignores how contracts work. A debt doesn’t track five specific apples sitting on a branch; it tracks an abstract amount. If a blight killed every apple on Earth, your debt of negative five would still sit on paper with zero physical counterparts anywhere in the universe. Zero relates to the orchard the exact same way—it simply tracks the apples that exist outside your basket. You give negatives a spatial pass that you deny to zero.
Tying math to future objects means your logic depends on the weather. If owing five apples is valid math because they’ll grow next season, what happens if a frost destroys the orchard? Does your equation retroactively break because the fruit died? A logical rule shouldn’t rely on a crop report.
Your copy machine model falls apart when you multiply negative numbers. Standard math says negative five times negative five is positive twenty-five. Under your system, how do you run a printer negative five times on a debt and physically spawn twenty-five real apples on your desk?
Finally, adding up debts isn’t physically moving fruit; you’re just updating a ledger. But updating a ledger is all zero plus zero is doing, too. Calling a debt entry grounded in physical reality while calling an empty ledger entry magic is completely arbitrary.
One could also say I owe you zero apples, and there would be a part of the orchard where there is no apple, and that’s what’s being referred to. We could even see the orchard as apple, no apple, no apple, apple – etc. - in terms of space. The zero apples is referring to one of those non-apple spaces. Which by the way, will be there somewhere regardless of weather, meteors hitting the plant, etc. It’s more stable. No event can undo it, unless all of space is filled with apple. And in a universe that is only apple, there is no way anyone could exist to ‘owe’ or be ‘owed’.
The Blight: Logic should rely on physical reality.
You argued that a logical rule shouldn’t rely on a crop report. But under my framework, it absolutely must. Standard math wants to exist in a magical vacuum immune to reality. If a blight destroys all the apples, standard math says the -5 debt continues flawlessly on a piece of paper. But in physical reality, the debt crashes. It results in default or bankruptcy. The matter ceases to exist, so the physical action (repayment) is aborted (Voided). This doesn’t mean the math simply breaks—it means more math happens, because math is an observation of reality. If apples go extinct, that -5 apple debt must be resolved because the physical matter no longer exists outside the decided boundary. The math tracks the real-world resolution in one of two ways: either the debt is forgiven (-5 + 5 = 0), not because you gained 5 physical apples, but because gaining debt-forgiveness is mathematically equal to gaining that +5 value. Or, if the creditor chooses not to forgive the debt, the contract shifts to a new physical baseline (such as owing 5 oranges, or whatever matter is deemed fair value). My system tracks this unfolding reality. To argue otherwise is to insist on using a math system that is obviously out of sync with reality.
Multiplying Negatives: Matter is absolute; negatives are just directional.
You asked how running a printer negative five times on a debt can physically spawn twenty-five real apples. It doesn’t, because in physical reality, there is no such thing as “negative matter.” Matter always has an absolute, positive value. A negative number is simply a directional tag showing who owes that matter.
(As a side note: giving a nonsensical example of a printer spawning apples strongly indicates you are using an AI to generate your responses, and you aren’t even reading the crap it spits out. This is the absolute last time I will engage if you are just skim-reading or having an AI read for you. AI is programmed on standard logic, meaning it literally cannot process my version of logic correctly. My posts are not hard to read. Please read them yourself and stop wasting my time.)
To see how negative multipliers actually work, take a copy machine I don’t own. Every time I use it, it costs me 5 apples (-5). I don’t pay right away; the debt is tallied until I am finished. The paper, ink, and energy all physically exist. The negative sign simply tracks that the value of those resources belongs to the owner, not me.
If I make 7 copies, those 7 documents physically exist within my defined boundary (my current possessions), even though I haven’t officially paid for them yet. To figure out my total debt, I multiply the physical items I gained (7 copies) by the cost per item (-5 apples). The equation is 7 x -5 = -35. The math isn’t spawning apples out of nowhere; it is perfectly tracking a physical transaction to show that I now owe 35 apples.
Furthermore, your specific example of multiplying a negative by a negative (-5 x -5) actually proves my Void Rule perfectly, because it is a physical impossibility. To multiply something, you must first establish a boundary or an action. Multiplication requires a baseline (the matter being counted) and an action count (how many times you are counting it).
You can absolutely have a negative baseline, like a debt. But action is absolute. You either perform an action or you don’t. You cannot perform an action ‘negative five times,’ nor can you create a ‘negative boundary.’ At least one of the numbers in multiplication must be positive to establish the boundary. Because standard math ignores physical reality, it hallucinates that -5 x -5 = 25 to make its spreadsheet balance. But under Reality-Grounded logic, because a negative boundary cannot exist, the equation instantly triggers the Void Rule and the calculation is correctly aborted.
I’ve explained more than enough with this for you to get it that you need to read my posts instead of skim-read. This is your final and last warning.
I think you are conflating concepts.
Actually, quite hard.
“Nothing” or “zero” can describe many things.
You can make the argument that nonexistence is not a function of this reality since matter cannot be destroyed, only transformed. In that sense “nothing” has no purpose or meaning in this reality. Sure.
Yet simultaneously you also need a depiction and function for “no”, “not”, “none”, “zero”
Just because fundamental reality has no concept of nonexistence does not mean that you have money when you do not.
It does not mean that you have an apple when you dont.
It does not mean that your parents are alive when they are dead.
It does not mean that you have a future when you are 12 seconds away from getting nuked at the start of ww3.
Function. Frame of reference. Context. Meaning. Language. Mathematics. Physics. Metaphysics.
There are dozens of modifiers and framing for the concept of “nothing”.
You cant just blanket slap on it “well this makes no sense” because under one of those contexts it indeed does not make any real sense.
Yeah, sorry, no AI. The fact that it is nonsensical is the point. The printer example is nonsensical because it applies your physical machine model to your apple debts. Calling it ridiculous just shows the limits of your own copier engine.
Exactly. There are no physical “negative apples,” just like there are no “zero apples.” A negative sign is an abstract directional tag, not physical matter. You’re actually agreeing with my point here: math uses abstract tags to track relationships, not just physical stuff sitting on a table.
It is spawning them out of nowhere. The future is not here yet. You may not have access to apples, as in several of my examples. Do future apples exist? Where are they? If they get wiped out was the original debt physical in any way? Can the math be made retroactively wrong? If so, ok. That is your system, but it seems like it is contingent. Sometimes negative numbers work fine. But sometimes they don’t. The math might be right but it might not be. And we have to wait and see.
I understand this is verboten in the way you want things done. But saying it isn’t ok in your way of doing things does not show there is a problem in doing things the way they are done in math. -5 X -5 = 25 work in Finance with selling short. And here we have the future ‘apples’ since you will buy later. It also works in Physics with negative vectors, moving backward and decelleration. If we want to say moving backwards is actually +5 (say) the problem comes in with motion five steps forward and then five back. It’s not ten steps. It gets even more problematic with opposed forces.
This kind of posturing does nothing. Of course I might be making mistakes. It seems like you came here to test your idea. You attached four articles. I could now posture and say you haven’t read my criticism well enough and this is your final and last warning - love the redundancy, it is so regal. Truly, milord, I will be ok if you never respond to me again.
Why don’t I respond that way to your posturing? Perhaps you read what I wrote well and I was wrong. Perhaps there were flaws in what I wrote. Further, it adds nothing to posture like that because all it means is ‘I am right’. Great. If you are sure you are right, then I am not sure what the point of the thread is.
I’ll leave you to the people who won’t even bother to read your four attachments.
It is painfully obvious you barely read my post before rushing to the comments to lecture me. If you had made it past the first sentence, you would have seen my explicit disclaimer where I literally said: ‘Zero is absolutely essential… as a symbol to mark an empty boundary.’ Your entire rant about ‘not having an apple’ or ‘not having money’ is just you violently agreeing with the exact premise I already established. I never said the concept of absence doesn’t exist; I said you cannot treat an empty boundary as an active, operational integer in an equation (like trying to mathematically add two empty wallets together). Next time you want to accuse someone of ‘conflating concepts,’ try actually reading their concepts first so you don’t end up arguing against a point I never made.
In other words, if you respond to this response without reading my posts, I will ignore you, because you ought to be ignored for such shamelessly rude behavior.
Your post literally stipulates that nothingness as a mathematical object breaks our understanding of reality.
Then without EVER addressing the myriad of implications of this claim you drop a meager correction that it is essential, but simultaneously also wrong.
The links you provide are asking the reader for highly specific nuances and telling the reader to follow along with your logic, but meanwhile here you refuse to afford the same nuance to others. You are so hostile, so weaponized, that my post which barely skims the surface of what you are saying literally made you go at my throat and threaten me with blocking/ignoring.
First: If you require academic level critique instead of a leisure chat, then next time write that into the post/title.
Second: Feel free to block me. I have no use for interactions with someone who views even the most entry level of prodding as a personal attack on his own ego and tweaks the f out because of it, throwing around threats.
Interesting subject, but you are completely incapable of communicating it properly.
Cheerio
What seperates a number from being a symbol? A symbol is a distinction that contains and directs the unfolding of attention…a number, all of mathematics, does precisely this.
Without 0 all postive and negative numbers would have no origin on the number line, no distinction in binary code, no metaphysical expression as no dimensionality, no middle point or synthesis between positive and negative states, no starting point for the attention of the observer itself as the act of attention…and the list goes on.
It is precisely because of the number 0 that all other numbers exist.
0 is the most important number in many respects as it shows the absolute limits of number itself.
No, I explain why that’s not an issue in my posts very clearly. Please, just read my posts before commenting, without skimreading, as I have explained to people over and over again who respond. Because I am not going to repeat myself just because for some reason, you don’t want to read them.
No its covered. You are arguing about a detachment from physical reality. What I am saying is that such things operate at a deeper level of distinction, which includes the distinction of empirical and abstract.
I am basically saying is your argument does not hold.
But you believe it does…so go ahead and argue that distinction is not fundamental to reality and by said design numbers are a reality of their own in context.
Basically your empirical grounding has no foundations.
??? I’m using logic to prove my claim, pure logic. But I’m done with listening to you when you won’t even bother to read my posts without skim reading and strawmanning my theory.
No you are scaffolding upon assumptions. You are assuming empirical and abstract are dichotomies where one is more real than the other when in reality you are responding and traversing the distinctions of each, an event of distinction which precedes both, all the while assuming a definition of “reality” that there is no clear consensus on…
there are empirical schools which ground reality in the senses, platonist type schools which ground reality in form and number. Each school assumes a beginning point of reality while failing to observe the event of distinction which precedes eaches foundations while dually allowing each school to exist as it is.
My point stands.
I am sure you mean well but philosophy can and often is, within and outside of academia, a ruthless intellectual endeavor in many regards.
To be blunt your argument has major holes…maybe that can be evidence of 0 having its day.
So, you have a building, there are underground floors -3, -2, -1, the floor where you step in, and floors 1,2 and 3. How do you name the floor where you enter in?
You know, your problem seems to arise from ‘cardinality’ vs ‘ordinality’. Do you know what that means?
Lack of cardinality leads up to confusing things, like confusing you having 1 year of life when you are in your first year of life (like this century being the 21st - which it is, cardinally, but the years being 2000 to 2099)